Bitfinex Announcement - Canceling All U.S. accounts.

[HowlingMad]

BitFinex

Announcements
Announcements > Service Changes for U.S. Customers (Amended as of August 12, 2017)
August 11, 2017
Bitfinex is making changes to the services we provide to U.S. individuals. These changes impact the verification process and trading of certain digital tokens for U.S. customers. Some changes are effective immediately, and others will be gradually implemented in the coming weeks.

Suspension of U.S. Individual Verification Requests

We regret to announce that, effective immediately, we will no longer be accepting verification requests for U.S. individuals.

We have for some time considered pulling away from the retail marketplace in the U.S., and now with a current backlog of verification requests and ongoing difficulties in providing USD deposit and withdrawals for U.S. individuals, we feel that the time has come to begin disengaging from U.S. retail customers.

Several factors have gone into this decision:

While we have been able to normalize banking for some corporate customers and individuals in certain jurisdictions, compliant banking solutions for U.S. individuals remain elusive. We have been slowly and selectively inviting users in particular jurisdictions who meet set criteria to start using banking channels that have come online. This process is ongoing.
A surprisingly small percentage of our revenues come from verified U.S. individual accounts while a dramatically outsized portion of our resources goes into servicing the needs of U.S. individuals, including support, legal and regulatory.
We anticipate the regulatory landscape to become even more challenging in the future.
Bitfinex is not based in the United States. Exchanges based in the U.S. are better positioned to properly service retail U.S. customers.
We are thankful to all of our loyal U.S. customers that have consistently traded with us but, unfortunately, we have an obligation to our whole customer base and to our shareholders to make rational resource allocation decisions.

Furthermore, over the next 90 days, we will be discontinuing services to our existing U.S. individual customers. We will be communicating further with affected users on timing and specifics. Our intention is to reduce disruption as much as possible for our U.S. customers.

We will continue to take advice and implement further changes as circumstances warrant.

Restrictions on U.S. Persons Trading Certain Digital Tokens

Bitfinex will be barring U.S. customers from trading ERC20 tokens issued through "ICOs." That ban will go into effect at noon UTC on Wednesday, August 16, 2017. No trading of these tokens will be allowed for U.S. customers as of that date and time. Please note that nothing in this announcement should be taken as fact or opinion that any such ERC20 tokens are a security pursuant to U.S. law or require regulation under U.S. law.

Once again, we regret any inconvenience this change in policy might create.

We're dedicated to bringing you the best platform possible. If we made any mistakes or if you have any suggestions please get in touch. support@bitfinex.com / @bitfinex

@bitfinex / blog.bitfinex.com / bitfinex.statuspage.io

[HabBear]

There is already a thread on this topic that has some discussion. Please direct all additional comments to the original thread, you'll find it HERE.

Consolidating threads will generate the best discussion.

The news about Bitfinex decision is challenging. Could this be the start of the end of crytpocurrencies in the US? Let's talk about it on the original thread!

[bryant.coleman]

Great! At least now, we can be sure that there will be no American FBI seizure of the Bitfinex servers. BTC-e also should have done this, but they were very complacent and thought that the FBI would never catch them. Remember the seizure of Alphabay? When they were only catering to the users from the former USSR, they didn't had any issues. But when they started accepting customers from the United States, the site was seized by the FBI.

[rindo]

Bitfinex is definitely "baning" the United States users. The announcement was released 2 days ago and become official that until 9 November the withdraws have to be done. Besides that the North-American users are also not allowed to trade with other users in business platform. Slowly the American community is being outcasted from the Crypto exchanges doe to the several rules of SEC.

[eternalgloom]

Great! At least now, we can be sure that there will be no American FBI seizure of the Bitfinex servers. BTC-e also should have done this, but they were very complacent and thought that the FBI would never catch them. Remember the seizure of Alphabay? When they were only catering to the users from the former USSR, they didn't had any issues. But when they started accepting customers from the United States, the site was seized by the FBI.

It's still very appalling that the US can just shut down any service even though it's not even located in the US.
Reminds me of their actions against Megaupload.

What actually happened with the coins people had on BTC-E? I mean, a lot of people had coins on there that they had legally acquired, so the US just gets to keep everything?

Are there other exchanges we need to worry about?

[TheGodson]

This really is upsetting. I have been a great fan of the Bitfinex exchange and their platform. I've been taking my funds out sooner rather than later. I don't want to be with the herd of people trying to withdraw at the last minute and possibly facing difficulties. I'll have to look for a new exchange with the features that I like. The only thing that has come close is Poloniex, but they require SS which is kind of a red flag to me.

I read a lot of threads about people saying "the government can't ban Bitcoin". I guess I could say I told you all so, but that still sucks for all of us anyway. 

[leonair]

This really is upsetting. I have been a great fan of the Bitfinex exchange and their platform. I've been taking my funds out sooner rather than later. I don't want to be with the herd of people trying to withdraw at the last minute and possibly facing difficulties. I'll have to look for a new exchange with the features that I like. The only thing that has come close is Poloniex, but they require SS which is kind of a red flag to me.

I read a lot of threads about people saying "the government can't ban Bitcoin". I guess I could say I told you all so, but that still sucks for all of us anyway. 

Is really Bitfinex the reason of this commotion? I think not it is all about with the USA and its citizens as the government of them are regulating that exchange for they think are good in their country and Bitfinex is only doing this kind of thing for them to operate legally for other people eyes, they are only following rules and some danger to their company so instead of fighting their wants they just bend with it. Americans can still use cryptocurrencies exchanges or this Bitfinex exchange if they want to as there are so many ways if they really want it.

[TheGodson]

This really is upsetting. I have been a great fan of the Bitfinex exchange and their platform. I've been taking my funds out sooner rather than later. I don't want to be with the herd of people trying to withdraw at the last minute and possibly facing difficulties. I'll have to look for a new exchange with the features that I like. The only thing that has come close is Poloniex, but they require SS which is kind of a red flag to me.

I read a lot of threads about people saying "the government can't ban Bitcoin". I guess I could say I told you all so, but that still sucks for all of us anyway. 

Is really Bitfinex the reason of this commotion? I think not it is all about with the USA and its citizens as the government of them are regulating that exchange for they think are good in their country and Bitfinex is only doing this kind of thing for them to operate legally for other people eyes, they are only following rules and some danger to their company so instead of fighting their wants they just bend with it. Americans can still use cryptocurrencies exchanges or this Bitfinex exchange if they want to as there are so many ways if they really want it.

I really want it, but I'd be afraid of getting caught. I feel it is too risky to use a proxy or whatever and get busted later on if my account grows to something substantially large.